Down the Spiral of the Lower Sun
by Snark
Summary: A very loosely based story on the game. I intend to make things a bit diffirent. Well, I SAY a bit. It might be a little more. Who knows? Mhm, mhm. Quite so. Yes, nice weather we're having. READ THE DAMN STORY AND REVIEW!
1. Breach of the Brain

This story belongs to me

This story belongs to me.

Anything not used by A) Lewis Carroll B) American McGee C) Whatever company made the game, belongs to ME. And Jakathi, sorry if this story seems like I'm copying off you. I'll do my best to avoid any similarities, and I'm not planning on sticking with the fame's story a lot anyway.

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***

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The Poem

Down the spiral of the deeper sun

Came the monster

That is not human

Burning of Eden hath begun.

Clouds glow green with slain light

Bleeds the earth

And bleeds the sky

Time and space no longer Right.

Brain that dreams pure terror

Master came to mend the crack

Unto the world of unleashed madness

Under the rule of the Queen.

Find the One that brings misery

Hidden deep beneath memory

Of guilt and shame and dreadful sorrow

Losing may not be.

Do not make friends too closely

When you go to insane war

For those who aid you always

Bleed and burn and fall.

And when you meet the maddening monster

Let it speak it's lies

Then cry HAVOC!

And let the blood fly.

Ignore all pain and slay the monster

Make it scream and make it die

Else shall Eden have no springtime

Else shall Wonderland be no more.

***

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

The clock went tick tock, resting on the shelf on the warm fireplace.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

On the table a discarded deck of cards, randomly placed letters. Pictures of a happy family, a strong and graceful father, a kind and gentle mother, both loving the child that was in the middle.

The child was Alice.

Her father loves –_loved-_ her.

Her mother loves –_loved- _her.

And she loves –_loved-_ them.

The cat is sleeping, bathing in the warmth from the fireplace. A discarded petroleum light on the floor, and in the bed Alice lay, closed eyes and dreaming.

Let's have a tea party!

Is her arms she holds a bunny, holding it tightly to her chest as she wanders the great lands and unravels mysteries beyond all that a real world could offer.

I've got one! How is a raven like a writing desk?

The cat woke up. It rose to it's feet, and stretched it's muscles.

It's leg hit the petroleum lamp.

The lamp fell.

None heard the silent sound of glass shattering. None received a warning.

The clear liquid crawled across the carpet and reached the burning fire, locked away in the fireplace.

Freed, it sought what it had so long been denied. Everything.

The flames burned, and the more they destroyed and the more they consumed, the more they burned and consumed even more. An ever repeating circle, that can only end when all is ash and none stands, and only then the fire dies, it's own victim.

The house was a burning hell, filled with choking smoke and scolding heat. Alice awoke to the screams of her parents and the cracking of wood.

BURN

She rose in her bed, fear already holding her heart. Around her, flames licked her home, BURNing the furniture and walls.

The flames, like demonic tongues from a place where no human being should ever go, danced and sung their song of sweet destruction. 

Alice got out of her bed, and looked down the hall.

"_Mom? Dad?"_

She walked down the corridor of burning walls and furniture, like through a tunnel through hell. From the room that was her parent's bedroom, she could hear shouting.

No, It was _screaming._

She heard tortured screams of tortured people, shrieking in pure and seemingly endless agony as fire consumed flesh and they burned alive. 

"ALICE!"

She ran to the door, her bare feet pounding the carpet. Her arm stretched forward-

"SAVE YOURSELF ALICE!"

Running, running, running…

"GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!"

She reached the door. Alice grabbed the doorknob, and in her maddening panic never noticed how scolding hot it was, how it burned her. Hardly even aware of the death and destruction all around her, she knew-

"AAAAHHHHLIIICEE!"

She knew she had to open the door, because Mother and Father were trapped inside.

With an inhuman strength found only in the desperate and the panicking, she thrust the door open.

What she saw was not meant for human eyes, let alone for those of a child. She saw her loved ones, her beloved mother and adored father beneath a pile of burning wood, and she saw how they had tried to escape, but couldn't, and the fire had killed them slowly.

Mother was naked beneath a coat of ember and fire, her skin, once beautifully white as snow, was now red and black, and coated with blisters and charred places where the flesh had fallen off to reveal now blackened bone. Her face was frozen in that eternal scream of pain and torture, and Alice felt her sanity slip away as she stared into the pits that had once held her mother's eyes, and the way the eyeballs seemed to boil. When combined with the flaming hair and destroyed skin around the mouth, revealing the lower jaw and leaving the tongue to hang outside and bake, the terror and primal fear was incredible.

"…Alice…run…save…must…I…mother…"

To the left was her father, also as charred and barren as the woman he had loved, except he was still alive. It was a horrible sight to watch as he fought for seconds of his life, merely to prolong his pain in order to save a loved one already lost.

"…Save…us…"

And then he died, right there and then, and Alice couldn't help him.

She had lost all she had loved. She had lost the house of merry dreams and happy hours, she had lost the two people she had ever loved. 

And there was fire, and there were flames.

Flames.

Burning.

FLAMES.

BURING.

FLAMES BURNING.

FLAMES ARE BURNING FLAMES ARE BURNING FLAMES ARE BURNING **THE FLAMES BURN**

***

Alice slept in her bed again.

It was not her bed, nor was it her house, nor were the people who took care of her family, nor did she have her books-

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Her adventures

-and her toys.

Her eyes stared at nothing, her mind forever playing the same visions like a broken gramophone. 

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Flames burning are burning save yourself alice

Let's have a tea party get out of the house

Flames are burning

AAAAAAAAAAALLLLIIIICEEEEE

What is it like to have your world shatter?

To watch helpless as your family burned, unable to help, and to survive?

To _know _you weren't meant to stay alive.

****

You should have died Alice

So she ignored the voices, the pain as her fragile little mind rocked and tore at itself. She covered herself with a mental blanket, as a child that fears the night would hide under a bed, thinking he would be safe.

Only a part of her knew that it wouldn't work.

That she couldn't hide forever, because madness will find you. You have-

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Nowhere to run nowhere to hide

-no chance of winning when you fight yourself. Because your opponent knows your every move, and sees it before you make it.

You can't-

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Play chess that way

-fight that way.

A figure entered young Alice's room. It was The Nurse, Alice knew. She had never seen The Nurse, because she had never been able to control her body long enough to do so.

She knew The Nurse was kind, because The Nurse cared for Alice, and worried about her. Alice was sad she couldn't make The Nurse happy, couldn't awake from her nightmares. She was-

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Dead but dreaming

-hopelessly locked away in a cage she had made to protect herself from Everything Else.

The Nurse had brought her something.

"Poor girl…after all these years…"

The Nurse had Mr Bunny.

She bent over and placed it in Alice's arms.

She smiled. It was the most beautiful thing Alice had seen in years.

"Maybe that old rabbit will bring her around."

She stepped outside, and gently closed the door behind her.

For the first time in years, Alice moved other parts of her body than her chest.

She hugged that ragged old doll, and felt it for what it was.

A piece of the Good Times.

It was something that had survived the burning, a bit of her happy days come to rescue her from this hiding place and prison.

Hope.

Hope that all would be well.

Hope that the dreams of hazy terror and misty horrors would pass.

Hope that-

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Eden shall again have springtime

Wonderland shall be forever more

-the sun did still shine for her.

And then her hopes shattered, like tainted glass destroyed by crude and cruel hammers. They shattered when Mr Bunny raised his head, and her eyes met his. They burned with despair, as is every single horrible moment was forever fused within them.

The bunny screamed, and the scream that came out of it's mouth was a mixture of agonising pain and torture-

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Like being burned alive, eh, Alice?

-of a being doomed to the most horrible terrors-

****

you should have died Alice

-And there was a deeper, darker hue in it, a manic laughter riddled with malice and sadistic pleasure that somehow towered over the agonised screams of it's victims.

****

SAVE US ALICE!

And Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole-

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down the spiral of the deeper sun

-deeper and deeper into the darkness, the bottomless abyss.

Slowly, pawns and royals rolled and fell.

32 cards, no more, no less.

Down the rabbit hole fell Alice, and pawns and the Pale Royals, and cards of number 32, and

A clock.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock went the clock, falling down the rabbit hole.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

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"Brain that dreams pure terror

Master came to mend the crack

Unto the world of unleashed madness

Under the rule of the Queen."


	2. Enter Alice

Bottom of the hole **__**

Bottom of the hole

…Alice…

She lay on the floor, broken.

…Alice…

Of course, she couldn't really have survived the fall.

…wake up, Alice…

From thin air materialised teeth, sharp and yellow. Shortly after they were followed by a head, and it was followed by the body. 

He was the Cheshire Cat.

He was.

His body was thin, and coloured in a strange and sickly green. Obscure and arcane symbols carved into his skin changed with every movement of muscle. His eyes shined.

"Alice, it's time to wake up…"

But of course she wasn't waking up that easily. He had hoped. If she was to save Wonderland, he had hoped she could take some blows.

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She's a fragile little girl and you expected her to shrug of THAT??

She will have to go up against things much more lethal than mere gravity.

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But maybe she'll be expecting it THAT TIME.

No point in bickering now.

He had come to the strange habit of talking to himself. It wasn't just because that way he got sensible answers, but he was always around when he needed himself.

And that way, if his companion died, he wouldn't be in a position to cry.

…You still remember…

He didn't have time for memories.

He lifted his paws, and placed them on his chest.

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Sacrifices have to be made.

He thrust inward.

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And this is not the last one.

There was pain, lots of pain. Pain engulfed him, strangled him, burned and froze him as he ripped a part of his meta-essence, his very soul, straight from his living body.

Pain, overwhelming.

Burning, searing, cutting, shredding.

Paralysed.

But he couldn't give in. If he succumbed to the pain, he'd die. And then Alice would die, and then the Hearts Queen ruled over all. Trying to stay as focused as he could with the agony that was shaking his body and fogging his mind, he managed to seal his wound.

But now wasn't time to celebrate yet. He had to quickly gather the released essence, and fuse it into a Crystal. If he failed, he'd have to bleed again. And he wasn't sure he could survive another try.

He held out his aching paw, and formed a heart in the air. Gripping the earth, trying not to faint, he forced the released energies into the crystal heart. It filled up with the sweet and healing purple dust, and closed with a soft click.

He saw the beautiful crystal heart, floating in the air before him. The way the light broke as it passed through…the way it seemed to shine…so perfect…

He collapsed.

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Losing may not be, 

My dear exhausted friend.

Out of the corner of the eye he hadn't totally closed he saw a small mouse suddenly run up to him and begin to nibble on his tail. It wasn't so mush a pain as it was annoying, but it was a chance.

Slowly, he raised his paw, and then brought it down with fierce speed. 

With a splat, the mouse lay smeared all over the general vicinity of his tail, soaking the earth with fresh blood. 

And the earth drank.

From it's wrecked entrails came forth dust, so purple, so perfect.

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Need. Must have. NEED. MUST HAVE.

It danced around him for a brief moment, and then formed a small pyramid.

His heart sang with joy as he consumed it, for he knew he would live to guide Alice.

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You/We may live to see this land redeemed.

But now that he lived, one that was more crucial did not.

He took the great shining crystal heart, and taking great care not to let it pass into him, he stuffed it deep into the chest of-

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Dead but dreaming

-sleeping Alice.

"Wake up, Alice…Time to wake up…time…"

She awoke. Opening her eyes to gaze around the ragged and destroyed land. The hate and malice that had twisted it had not omitted a single inch. 

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You should never have brought her into this. Look at her! So fragile, so defenceless. Why did you damn her to the sick and disturbing hellhole you live in?

She is the Saviour.

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She is a little girl, traumatised and left in a loony house for YEARS! She hardly even saved herself!

The land still stands. She guarded her sanity for years, haunted and hunted by terrors of her own make. The ones that you fear most. She will fight, and she will win. **She will win for us all.**

Ah, my jewel has awakened.

Bet I can guess the first thing she'll say.

"Uh…Where am I?"

I win!

Slowly, Alice rose from the ground. She squirmed, her neck and back still aching. Then, like a slap across the face, her question answered itself, as her vision cleared, and the blurry shapes that formed her surroundings left and were replaced by a grotesque view of the world around her.

The last time she had seen Wonderland, it had been made of beautiful, rolling hills, the plants and blooming flowers bathing in the warm sunlight from the gentle sun in a clear blue sky. It was so beautiful to the point of being surreal, and that was it's special charm, the way the sun made you feel warm but never hot, the clouds never threw any actual shadow, and the air itself seemed to have a joyful happiness woven into it's fabric. Time didn't fly when you were having fun, because it was always _just right_. And the inhabitants were silly, in a good-natured way as they considered their silly actions to be awfully important.

She liked that wonderland.

She didn't like _this wonderland._

Where her wonderland had been beautiful, this one was bizarre, A horrific nightmare of swirling chaos, and where there had been a near solid joy in the air, now lay a feeling of dread and a sense of some evil, nameless horror that had turned her wonderland into this perverse parody of beauty.

The sky was a gaping blackness, a dark and cold void above their heads. Shadows swirled in and out of that hateful dark, a gloomy display of the sinister power which had claimed this land. 

The Cheshire Cat saw what she was looking at.

"Much has changed since you lived here, my friend. This is no longer your dreamscape."

"But…it's my wonderland."

"No, dear Alice. It is your no more. It was taken from you while you slept."

"Who…who took it?"

"Were it known, we would have long ago taken it again. But no, girl, we know not. Most believe that the Queen of Hearts is the thief of dreams, but I do not."

"Why not? It would be just like her."

"As Wonderland, as we all, so she has suffered. Before I fled her court, she was in an unenviable state. Her body had been as if twisted and turned inside-out, and her veins leaked a foul smell."

"So, who could it be?"

"If only I knew, Alice."

There was a pause, in which Alice seemed to ponder the new data. After a brief consideration, she asked:

"How have I come here?"

"The screams of a dying world have summoned you. Wonderland tears at itself, and like a volcano, the rumblings are the sign of inside pressure. Soon, Wonderland will erupt."

"Why is the evil destroying the world?"

"The evil cares not, my dear Alice. And the motives of this evil are difficult to comprehend."

"What do you mean?"

"The evil searches for you."

"Does…it…know I'm here?"

"It should not. It has no way of knowing. But it knows, Alice. And if it wants you, we must find out why."

"It probably wants me because this was once my wonderland."

"Alice, stop thinking of this place as your wonderland. Your wonderland died, and this is the thing that has spawned on it's grave. You have no more power than a person born here. You can DIE, Alice."

Die? That was no problem. She could deal with dying. Generally, it was easier than living. 

Easier than living, living and remembering…

That was where Alice fainted, and fell to the ground like a bag of bones.

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There was The Night, the Night of the Burning. It was an evil night, and her memories were clear. Many a time had she hoped, begged, that the memories would fade away, reducing themselves to a hazy, blurry recollection of inaccurate fear. It never happened. Her memories of it were clear as crystal, and vivid as the flames of the Night of the Burning.

She could remember every detail, as if it had all happened only yesterday. As if it had happened only a second ago. As if **it were happening now.** She could smell the burning of her mother's fair hair, could see how it seemed like the fire was growing out of her skull, and she could see her eyeballs **melt away **oh god_ and the blisters, there were so many blisters, the way her skin just **cracked open** and the scream_ oh god make it stop _she could remember the screams, so strong, so _please make it stop _fierce from the pain, and then her gaze would pass over her father, and he was crawling, fighting the pain **and the agony and the misery and THE PAIN, THE BURNING PAIN, **and he was losing, he would never make it, he was _I don't want to remember_ and she knew, she saw, she was aware that he had lost a leg, and it was under a huge piece of burning wood, and she could **see the bone** and it looked like **he had torn it off?** In a frenzy to save his wife, but _and I survived how could I survive _it was too late, and it had been too late a long time ago, because she was dead, and dead, she was screaming until there was no more air in her lungs, her dead lungs, and there was the horror of blood and fire and death._

Here, her memories ended. The rest was a blur, the way she fought her way out of the house, each flame a demon, screaming, taunting, dancing their mad dance of destruction. How she collapsed on the soft, green grass, and turned, and saw the house in flames, the song climbing and climbing, a thousand hateful voices screaming in the night, like a chorus of ravaging thunder, and she couldn't resist that song, she had to watch, watch the house go, and the song reached it's climax. The thunders, so hateful, roared and so did she.

They found her the next day, staring at the smoking remains of the bonfire that had once been her home. She had watched it burn all the way into ash.

She opened her eyes, and found the Cheshire Cat looking at her, worried. As mysterious as he was, as hard as he tried to hide his motives and his feelings, sometimes, he slipped. She saw that slip. It crossed his face like a vague shadow, and disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

It said "_I should have never brought into this."_

It said "_I knew her memories as well as she does. I should have never brought her here."_

And she didn't like that, because that suggested she was weak, weak and fragile, a thing of porcelain, made to sit on a shelf and look pretty. 

And she knew she wasn't like that. This was her wonderland, no matter what the Cat said. Who…Whatever stole it from her, came from the Night of the Burning. And this was a chance…a chance to strike back at an aeon of injustice, of torture and fear, of longing for the Good Times, and the hateful song.

It was a chance that there would, once again, if only once and never again, be justice.

She knew she would do it.

"Cat, I'll do it."

"What?"

"I'll do it, Cat. I'll show the evil what little princess perfect can do."

"It won't be easy, know that. There shall be-"

"Yes. There shall be bloodshed."

And then she smiled, and it was a nice, kind smile, but that wasn't all. Somewhere back there, there was another part of Alice, the Cheshire Cat noted. It was smiling as well, but so does a shark before it tears it's victim apart. It smiled at the promise of blood. 

It was submerged, and Cat hoped it stayed that way. And if it tried anything he would stop it.

Because he needed Alice as she was.

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Because he wanted Alice as she was.


End file.
